Over the years there have been a number of albums that not only have stuck with me because of how good they are, but also in how they influenced my tastes and even my outlook on life. While it’s hard to narrow it down to just 10, I think this list is a good selection of what has inspired me throughout my life. I tried to pick only one album for each artist in order to keep it varied, although I did cheat a bit with two entries on the list (I’ll let you know when 😉 ).

First up is Pink Floyd’s 1979 magnum opus, The Wall. Most people are aware of this band and in particular this album even if they haven’t listened to it: it’s one of their most famous works next to their 1972 album Dark Side of the Moon. Even those who haven’t heard it would at least be familiar with the song ‘Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)’ and it’s chant of ‘We don’t need no education/we don’t need no thought control’. While I was familiar with that song, it was another song on the album, ‘Comfortably Numb’, that inspired me to go out and buy the album after hearing it on Triple J’s Hottest 100 of All Time in 1998.

Listening to the album what struck me more than the music, which was indeed awesome, was how much I related to it. For those unaware, The Wall is a concept album about how trauma in a person’s life can lead to them creating a metaphorical wall that both protects them from further harm, but also isolates them from those that care about them. It tells the story of a boy (named Pink in the movie adaptation) who’s father is killed in the Second World War, and grows up with an overbearing and overprotective mother. He goes through the English public school system where he’s bullied by students and teachers alike, causing him to start building a wall to shield himself from the pain. As he grows up he becomes a famous rock star. He marries, but treats his wife horribly until she leaves him. Slipping deeper into depression, he turns to booze and drugs, becoming a burnt out shell of a man. His wall is now complete, and he cuts himself off from the world. He comes to hate his audience, and sees himself as a dictator, ordering his audience to deal with anyone he deems unworthy. Then, in a moment of clarity, he stops, and puts himself on trial for what he has done. In his mind he passes judgement on himself: that the wall should be torn down. This will expose him to the pain he once tried to hide from, but also will allow those who love him to reach him once again.

I won’t go into the whole history of what inspired band leader Roger Waters to create this album, only that it is partly inspired by his own experiences growing up as well as touring with Pink Floyd. I will say that the reason I, and many others I’ll bet, can relate to this album is because of how universal it’s themes are. You don’t have to have lost a parent in the Battle of Anzio, or to have gone to an English public school, or to have become a burnt-out rock star to understand the album’s themes of trauma, isolation, and despair. For me, the song ‘The Happiest Days of Our Lives’ (a deliciously ironic title) and it’s follow up ‘Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)’ could easily be about my own school life, and how I had to build my own wall to protect myself from the cruelty I experienced there. ‘Mother’ could easily be about how my parents, although well-intentioned, ended up passing on their fears and misconceptions to me as a child. ‘Hey You’ and ‘Is There Anybody Out There?’ could easily be my own wishes to rejoin society, but being unable to overcome the barrier I felt I still needed for protection. Hell, I can even understand the protagonist going full fascist in ‘In the Flesh’ and ‘Waiting for the Worms’, as I can understand how that sort of isolation can lead to bitterness and resentment that can manifest in some of the dangerous ideologies we see present today.

The use of sampled sounds (a baby crying, war planes, teachers shouting, televisions being smashed) adds to the atmosphere, and allows each track to seemlessly flow into the next. Some of my particular favourite tracks include ‘Another Brick in the Wall (Part One)’, which has a much haunting take on the famous riff with lyrics reflecting on the loss of his father, ‘Mother’, as mentioned before, along with ‘Hey You’, ‘Nobody Home’, in which he laments the burnt-out life he now inhabits, the tragic ‘Comfortably Numb’ in which a now heavily medicated Pink looks back on his childhood lost, and the threatening but catchy anthem of ‘Run Like Hell’. The album does have one flaw, I feel, and that’s the transition between ‘Empty Spaces’ and ‘Young Lust’. The former was originally part of another song called ‘What Shall We Do Now?’ that was cut from the album but has been played in full on tour and in the movie. In it’s original form the eerie, machine-like intro builds into something intense, but it’s transition on the album into the less-intense sounding ‘Young Lust’ is jarring and feels like a bit of a let down. I would have rather they cut ‘Young Lust’ in favour of keeping ‘What Shall We Do Now?’ intact. Otherwise the album is near perfect.

I’ve seen The Wall performed live twice by Roger Waters, and it was one of my all-time greatest concert experiences. His new performances of the stage show incorporate a lot more visual representations on how the walls we build around ourselves lead to walls that divide communities, leading to wars and violence. The themes on the album may not be deep, but they are universal, as I said. It’s an album that I enjoy both musically and thematically, and one I can relate to my own life, right down to the way the final track loops back into the first one, showing how these cycles can happen again. That’s why this album is my favourite of all time.